STATE HAS FIFTH LOWEST PAROLE VIOLATION RATE

Board Members Say Improvement Due To Tough Screening

West Virginia has the fifth lowest rate of parole violations in the
country, a fact the chairman of the Parole Board attributes to a tougher
screening process before prisoners are released.

A decade ago, 66 percent of inmates who appeared before the Parole Board
were granted their release. Now just 28 percent are set free, said Doug
Stump, chairman of the board.

"You've got to take a look -- do you want to have a Ferris wheel or do you
want to be a little more conservative on who you let on parole?" he said.

Though there were nearly two and a half times as many parole hearings in
2001 as there were in 1990, the number of inmates granted parole has
remained virtually unchanged.

In 1990, 546 inmates of the 828 interviewed were granted parole. Last year,
550 inmates of the 2,022 interviewed were granted parole.

Stump said the national rate of granting parole is 35 percent to 40 percent.

Sandra Ilderton, former chairwoman of the Parole Board and still a member,
said the change in the trend could partially be attributed to a new kind of
offender.

"These young punks who don't have the same attitude as they used to," she
said. She said while at Huttonsville Correctional Complex conducting parole
board hearings she walked down the hall and asked herself, "What is with
these inmates?"

When deciding whether or not she will cast her vote in favor of an inmate
getting parole, she said she also takes into account the resources of the
county where the offender will be paroled.

In West Virginia, 65 percent of parolees successfully discharged their
parole in 1999, much higher than the national average of 42 percent.

And while the percentage of new admissions to state prisons who are parole
violators grows in the rest of the country, from 29 percent in 1990 to 35
percent in 1999, West Virginia's numbers are much lower and headed in the
opposite direction.

In 1990, 13 percent of new admissions to state prisons were parole
violators in West Virginia. In 1999, that number dropped to 10 percent, the
fifth best in the nation.

Most parolees who violate their parole do it on "technical grounds,"
violating one of the rules of their parole rather than committing a new crime.

Rules include holding steady employment, reporting changes in residence and
passing alcohol and drug screenings.

About 90 percent of inmates say they committed their crimes while under the
influence of drugs or alcohol, Stump said. So, when parolees violate their
parole by failing a drug test, "We almost have to put them back because
that's what they committed their crime under in the first place," he said.

One of the weaknesses in the system is a lack of treatment programs for
parolees, he said. One new program, called Second Chance provides substance
abuse counseling for parolees who have violated their parole, without
sending them back to prison.

If the parolee completes the 120-day program in St. Mary's, then he will be
allowed to remain on parole. The program is new. The first class of 14
inmates entered the "boot camp" setting in June, Stump said. The second
class will graduate soon.

Though about 90 percent of parole violators do so on technical grounds,
Stump said he's most concerned with keeping the felony rate down.

"That's a public safety thing. We get pretty uptight when we see one of our
parolees back in on a felony," he said.

Stump said, though he thinks the state's low rate of granting parole is
good, that he would like to see even more inmates granted parole from the
work-release centers, which already account for a large percent of parolees.

He'd also like to see another work-release center in the Martinsburg area.